Bookshops need help to turn the page

MANY LONG-ESTABLISHED BOOKSHOPS have closed and that trend is continuing today, despite their efforts to survive by offering a café or children’s activities as well. Guangming Daily comments:

There are three main reasons for this trend. First, increasingly more people have been giving up reading. Second, quite a high percentage of those who continue reading have changed from reading paper books to e-books; Third, of the limited number of people who continue reading paper books, quite a high percentage buy them online, instead of from bricks-and-mortar bookstores.

Bookstores have tried to survive by resorting to offering leisure activities and opening coffeehouses inside the bookstores. However, as several media surveys show, these measures are hardly helping.

It would be a shame if physical bookstores were to disappear completely. Bookstores are more than “places selling books”, they are cultural palaces. A city without bookstores is not culturally rich.

However, the fact is that bookstores cannot survive the fierce market competition and they are failing. The economic burden for them is so heavy and their profit margin so thin that they cannot continue existing.

In order to prevent bookstores from totally disappearing, the government as the entrusted management agency of the society should consider subsidizing bookstores to help them survive.